


Nothing But Time

by Themistoklis



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Groundhog Day, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8416372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: Desiree didn't even like basketball.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Melody_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melody_Jade/gifts).



**[ Playback 47 ]**

Desiree didn't even like basketball. She'd agreed to come because Theo had wanted her to. (Or, more accurately, he'd had an extra ticket, and she hadn't been able to think of anything better to do.)

They rounded a corner and she grabbed the back of Theo's sweatshirt and yanked, pulling him into the mouth of the nearest section opening. His jaw snapped shut with audible  _ click,  _ but he didn't say anything, and there was more than a rumble of noise spilling out from the court to cover them.

Five guys in jerseys had climbed over the concession stand. Food spilled everywhere and all of them were holding glasses of frothing beer. A woman in a uniform and a TD Garden hat lay facedown over the counter, her head twisted unnaturally to the side. Her hair had been pulled through the back of her hat, but someone had pulled off her hair tie in the struggle.

Desiree's own ponytail brushed the back of her neck and she flinched. The woman sprawled on the counter had her eyes open. Her lips were parted, her fingers clenched into fists.

"We should walk around to the other side and use that stairwell," Theo murmured in her ear. He curled his arm around the inside of her elbow and tugged her away from the hall.

It was possible to walk through the seats in the arena. Just not very safe. People who didn't know what else to do were throwing things at the court and none of them seemed to mind that their tosses fell short more often than not.

Desiree kept her head down as they walked. She would not make eye contact with anyone. "Theo," she said. "What if we can't break the doors down?" They were just doors, but they hadn't had any luck getting out last time.

"Then we'll try the windows," he said. Popcorn washed over them from seats above, and he let go of her, flushing red and shaking. He didn't wait for her to finish brushing the food from her hair before stalking forward. "Come on, you're slowing me down."

_ Slowing  _ him  _ down? _

 

 

**[Playback 48]**

Jenny stopped in the middle of ringing up yet another basket of fries. She made eye contact with the customer who'd ordered them. He'd gone ashen, and he turned to run into the court without paying. Jenny watched the rest of people in line orient themselves and go running too: to find their groups, or to try a door they hadn't tried before.

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She watched her coworker jump the counter and disappear around the bend of the hall. It only took a few minutes before there was no one else in sight. The inside of her mouth was sour and hot.

Distant shrieking rose from the court. She started to reach for a bottle of water and stopped herself.

The counter was empty, but she could feel it digging into her ribs. She could feel a hand pulling her back by the hair and another gripping her jaw. She could see the room blur as her head turned to the side while her body slammed forward onto the counter - She leapt back, shaking, her hip smashing painfully into the corner of the fry vat.

She sank down to the floor. No one would see her unless they came all the way up to the counter. She curled her arms around her legs and gasped for breath, turning her head back and forth until she was too queasy to keep moving. She should be trying to get out, with the others, or finding her friend who sold ice cream on the ground floor, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and her feet were glued to the floor.

It was impossible to know what time it was, from the floor.

At some point, two of the men from before loomed over the counter. One of them was swaying already, and fell back when he tried to lift a leg and crawl inside the stand.

The other saw her and laughed. "You wanna - you wanna maybe help us this time?" he asked, smacking his lips. He reached out toward her and knocked over a cup full of straws.

One hit her shoe and knocked her loose. Jenny put a palm flat on the sticky floor and slowly pushed herself up.

"She's gonna get us a drink," the guy said, laughing. He hauled his friend up to his side.

Jenny picked up the biggest cup they stocked: 32 ounces.

It hurt a lot when she dunked it into the fryer, but 32 ounces of hot oil in their faces stuck both of the men to the spot. Jenny did take a bottle of water to pour over her hand, and ran to the nearest stairwell while they sobbed on the floor. The sour taste in her mouth was gone.

 

 

**[ Playback 65 ]**

Marco remembered that this is at least the dozenth time he'd walked into this arena just as the door shut behind them. He pulled little Lia into his arms, but she was already crying and clawing at his face. He stumbled and both of them were shoved to the floor by a crowd trying to grapple with the door.

He landed hard on one arm, just barely managing not to smash Lia headfirst into the tile. She wailed pitifully, while his arm throbbed. He couldn't get to his knees. Lia squirmed and kicked his arm. His vision swam. The tile was cool under his palm. He couldn't get his hands to cooperate. When he pushed against the floor he could only crawl forward.

"Lia, hush, please-" She was so  _ small,  _ and he couldn't see past the people trying to break out.

A hand suddenly settled on his shoulder. A woman in a sweater dress with her dark hair gathered into a ponytail. "Hey, come here," she said. She glared at the crowd. "You'll have more room if you let them out! For fuck's sake, she's just a kid!"

Lia stopped crying to gape open-mouthed at the woman and at Marco for not saying anything about the f-word. He took the stranger's help and the moment of silence to crawl out of there and get Lia away from the worst of it. They collapsed against the far wall, Marco breathing hard, the pain in his arm receding just a little.

The woman crouched in front of them. "Are y'all okay?"

"I can't believe I walked in here  _ again _ ," Marco groaned. He pulled Lia into his lap and took several deep breaths. The woman eyed him a little warily. "We were running late. All I could think was, my wife's here, she's gonna be so mad we're running so late. I didn't  _ remember! _ "

The woman opened her mouth, but some guy in glasses stomped up and pulled on her sleeve before she could speak. He had a hockey stick in one hand that he must have stolen from some concession booth. "We need your help over here! What are you-"

"I was just making sure they were okay, Theo!"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but  _ none  _ of us are okay!"

She stood up and shoved him with both hands. "Fuck you!" she snapped. The guy, Theo, dropped the hockey stick and lurched forward, shoving her back.

Marco scooted away from them. He had to let go of Lia to turn over and get onto his knees. Her bottom lip wobbled, and he was really still in too much pain to do this, but he scooped her up and rocked her in his arms as he darted into the nearest doorway. Their tickets had been for the balcony. He had to hope he could get there from here. He had to find his wife.

Maybe next time, he'd remember  _ before _ he walked through the door. Maybe.

 

 

**[ Playback 73 ]**

"You  _ blew someone up!" _

Theo gestured vaguely, not even slowing down. "He's fine now!"

Desiree laughed, so hard she had to lean against the wall. She laughed so hard water came to the corners of her eyes. Theo got about halfway down the hallway before throwing his hands in the air and reluctantly turning back to face her. People streamed in both directions around them. The group they'd joined up with the last couple of times had, before the explosions went so wrong, said they were going to meet up on the top floor if their plan didn't work out.

When she laughed so hard it was hard to breathe, Desiree sat down in the middle of the floor. She pressed both hands to her stomach and tried to inhale slowly. She ended up just gasping instead. Her fingers still felt slick with blood.

Theo knelt down in front of her and stuck out one hand. "Come on! We don't have time for this!"

"We have-" Desiree ducked her head and choked on one last giggle. "We have nothing  _ but  _ time, Theo."

His ears went red. "That's not funny!"

"Neither is blowing people up!" she blurted. There'd been blood on her hands, brain and bone on her shoes. There'd been screaming. And somebody behind her, laughing. The door - the door they'd rigged to explode - had been pristine.

Theo scowled at her and pulled his hand back. "If you want to give up, then give up. Maybe we'll get out this time and the rest of you will be stuck here." He shook his head. "Maybe people have been getting out all along! You don't know!"

After he turned and left for the nearest staircase, Desiree sat on the floor for the next ten minutes. She almost felt like going back to their original seats and staying there until the reset. It would be nice to rest. Maybe she could take a nap. It felt like she'd been awake for years. Oh, god. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself. The hallway was mostly empty now, and the few people walking through didn't spare her a second glance.

If she went back to her seat, someone would probably take her cell phone again. It'd been burned once before in one of the ever-increasing bonfires at center court. She couldn't use it to call her sister, but there were still books on it.

She waited another couple of minutes before getting to her feet. Her knees were stiff as she took a few hesitant steps to the stairwell.

She wasn't really in the mood to read, anyway.

***

On the upper balcony level, Theo was near the front of their little group. He didn't turn his head when she walked up to the back. She considered elbowing her way through, but it didn't seem like it was worth it. Across the area that band of people in section 320 were already barricaded again. 

The soapboxers from a few loops ago were pulling down all the other banners that they could reach. Someone had already set one on fire. She wondered for a second why none of the smoke detectors were working, then got distracted when Theo and one of the other bomb-makers snapped at each other: "Fuck-" "No, fuck you-"

"It's not my fault you didn't move away fast enough!" Theo said. He raised his hands and the other guy took a step back. Theo stopped himself and uncurled his fists, breathing hard through his nose. "It's not my fault," he repeated.

"Do you know what it feels like to reach up to touch your face and find your jaw isn't there?!"

Blood, slick on her fingers… Desiree took half a step back, and bumped into someone.

He touched her arm briefly to steady her, and she felt herself flushing pink. "Sorry."

"No need." The man was tall and broad-shouldered. His face seemed familiar but at the same time she wasn't sure she could come up with an adjective to describe it. Nondescript? He inclined his head to her. "My name is Jason."

"Oh. Uh. I'm Desiree."

Jason nodded. "Do you mind if I step through here, Desiree?"

She blinked at him, and then at Theo, who was still arguing about why it wasn't his fault the bomb went of prematurely. Other people were starting to argue too: about whose fault it was, about whether to try again, about whether they were wasting time by arguing. If Jason wanted to step into that it was no skin off her nose. She edged aside and watched him ask four different people to move out of his way, until he was standing next to a baffled Theo.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Jason, but that isn't important." He turned and leaned against the balcony railing, glancing back and forth across the crowd. Theo sputtered next to him. "I saw what you did last time. The whole arena did. Now look at how many more of us have come to the center."

They all craned their necks when he pointed at the court. The crowd down there had gotten bigger since the last time Desiree had paid attention to it. It still didn't look like there were as many people as section 320, or as had simply abandoned their seats to hide out in the hallways. But sure, more than last time.

"All of you need to stop."

"We messed up once, that doesn't mean we will again." Theo pushed his glasses up his nose. "If you want to stay here for the rest of eternity, you're welcome to it. But do it somewhere else."

Jason just stared at him. "We don't deserve to get out, none of us."

Nobody said anything.

Jason turned to face the rest of them. "You all have been running around this stadium as if anything you do will crack the wall that's formed around us. Isn't it clear now that no energy expended outwards will help? You maimed and slaughtered people in your efforts to escape. We all witnessed the perfect condition of the door. I think that alone would convince you that acting out is not going to help. We need to look  _ in.  _ We need to focus our efforts on  _ ourselves. _ "

The guy who'd had his jaw blown off was cupping his face with both hands. A couple of people were looking nervously at each other. Desiree realized she was rubbing the skin between her fingers and made herself stop. Her skin was clean. There was no blood.

"Look, buddy," Theo said, ignoring Jason's raised eyebrows. "We've all heard you talking before, and we've all made the decision to keep doing what we're doing. So how about you run along and-"

"Do you think your soul is fine?" Jason asked. "Because our bodies are whole when we begin each loop?"

"Nobody here is buying what you're selling."

"When we deserve to leave, the doors will open for us. But we have to make sure that we deserve it."

Theo snorted. Desiree noticed that the crowd was splitting. It looked like they'd simply left a path for Jason to leave again, but the people to one side were quiet and the rest were muttering among themselves. Desiree shuffled backward. There were only a few people who'd moved closer to Jason, but she didn't want to be in arm's reach of anyone right now.

"You sound insane," Theo said. "If you want to waste your time chanting and destroying things instead of working to help everyone here, then fine. Don't expect me to join you."

"Look around. This place is nothing but hedonistic consumption. Everyone here paid money to - to what? What overpaid entertainers act for our amusement? We're trapped here because we've reached a breaking point. We have to make a change, inside ourselves, before we'll be allowed to leave."

"And by change you mean do whatever you say, right?"

Jason sighed. "You're not contributing to this conversation," he said.

Then he grabbed Theo's shirt, hauled him off his feet, and shoved him over the balcony railing.

Desiree stood frozen, her hands at her sides. They were so high up. People on the level below them were screaming. She would have to walk forward, to the railing, to look down and see where Theo had fallen. She would have to move.

Jason didn't even glance down. He brushed himself off and walked through the gap in the crowd: a few people hesitantly trailed behind him, avoiding eye contact with the rest of the group. "I'm seated in section 108. Find me when it resets."

"What." She wet her lips and made herself turn her head to look up at him. He stopped next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. His fingers were clean. There wasn't any blood. "What are you going to do?"

"If we want to get out," Jason said, his face solemn, "it's going to take all of us."

 

 

**[ Playback 111 ]**

Alicia couldn't find chains or a padlock, but she did find a broom closet.

She went to the door that Marco would enter from and braced it closed with as many brooms as she could stuff in the handles. She shoved chairs in front of the doors and sat down in one, bracing her feet on the floor. Her watch said eighteen past - Marco and Lia would be here soon. 

"Hey, back off." Alicia raised a fire extinguisher, the only weapon she'd been able to lay her hands on. Those nutcases that kept killing themselves with pipe bombs were still trying to break out and she had to be prepared. Nobody was going to try to break this exit, not this time. She couldn't build a pipe bomb or jerry rig a grenade, but she'd used a fire extinguisher once in high school and knew how awful it was to breathe in. Plus, it was heavy. If she had to, she could swing it.

The girl who'd run around the corner skidded to a stop. She was wearing a TD Garden uniform and had her hair pulled back through a baseball cap. "Whoa, sorry! Jesus."

"It's nothing personal, but nobody is coming through this door. You should go now."

"God, I just wanted to take a break," the girl muttered. She gave Alicia one last wary glance before backing away from the door. She looked both ways before heading toward a service door that wasn't locked for some reason. Alicia didn't care, as long as the girl stayed gone. She settled back down in her chair and rested the fire extinguisher on one knee. Every muscle in her body felt taut. She was exhausted.

Her watch showed twenty-eight past. Marco would be here in seven minutes. Six. Three.

One…

Alicia felt the doors press forward and whipped around. The doors strained. The brooms clattered against each other. The chair at the center of the pile inched forward, and a crack of light appeared between the doors: wet, cold air spilled in. The doors sank back. For a second Alicia's whole world spun. The breath in her lungs stilled, and her grip on the fire extinguisher slipped slightly. The doors were closing.

The doors had  _ closed. _

She let the fire extinguisher fall to the floor with a dull thud. Burying her face in her hands, she took several deep breaths but didn't start to cry. It had worked.

_ "But what about you?" _

_ "There's no hope for me. But if we can keep you out, maybe the cycle will break. Maybe you can leave!" _

Marco and Lia couldn't come through the door. She couldn't open the door and join them, but she'd stopped them from entering this hellscape for the hundredth time.

After a couple of minutes her heartbeat had slowed. It felt less like she was in danger of splitting in half. She inhaled deeply and cracked her fingers to peer out. The door was still shut. It really had wor-

A hand touched her shoulder. She shrieked and tried to spin, only managing to trip over the fire extinguisher in the process. Her knee bashed against the tile and her shoulder stopped against someone's chest. Before she could register the faces in front of her she'd swung her fist up and punched Marco square in the mouth. His teeth cut her knuckles open.

Lia wailed while her parents both sat on the floor and stared at each other. 

Marco had a cut on his lip. Blood dribbled down his chin. "We came through another door. We thought this one was broken."

 

 

**[ Playback ███ ]**

"It's because we've lost sight of consequences."

Desiree looked at Jason without turning her head. She had gotten better at doing that, the past few replays. Jason was beginning to react badly to sudden movement.

"We have an apparently infinite amount of time in which the outside world is making no demands on us. Why are we not using it to better ourselves? Because there are no lasting physical consequences." Jason sighed. "We're numb to the fact that we are all trapped here for a reason."

The arena  _ was  _ beginning to feel different. The air felt less stale. Desiree had been awake an uncountable amount of time, but the nagging pull of fatigue had been just a blip. Now when they walked across the court she felt like she was floating. Now when their world reset, she had a purpose. She and Theo didn't speak before they split ways any longer, but she knew that he was still trying to break out. It made her sad.

The floor felt thinner underneath her shoes. When Jason spoke, his voice traveled. People in the stands turned to listen, even though they hadn't joined yet. She still wasn't sure whether she had an immortal soul, but she did have a life, and Jason was right that it could be a better life. That she could be a better person.

"What are they doing?" she asked, when Jason had turned for a moment and she was already in his line of sight. They had slowed now that they were on the court itself.

A ring of people surrounded two men in jerseys. Desiree couldn't recognize them. They were lying face-up on the floor, so the names on their jerseys weren't visible. Strips of banners wrapped around their faces, knotted over their mouths.

"Demonstrating the consequences." Jason briefly touched her arm and they came to a halt a few feet away.

Desiree noticed a knife in the hand of the woman standing between the players. Her feet suddenly felt heavier. Jason's hand slid down her arm and his fingers linked with hers. His skin felt rough but normal. Her own was growing cold. Jason squeezed her hand, while she scanned the bleachers, trying to see if she could find Theo. But if he was in the court this round she wasn't able to spot his group. The people up in 320 were stringing banners all around their section like tent walls.

"Everyone here paid to see these men," Jason explained. The woman with the knife was saying something similar into a microphone. "The teams have been hiding. If we show everyone that actions have consequences, even in here, they may understand the need to change."

She felt like someone had their hands on her shoulders and was pressing her down through the floor. Jason's pupils were wide and she could see the whites around his irises. Her fingers ached in his grip.

_ "Repent!" _ screamed the woman with the knife.  _ "Repent! Repent!" _ She started to chant, until the ring of supporters around her picked up the words and left her free to work. The knife dove. People in the stands screamed, Desiree could hear it. The basketball players screamed, too, beneath the knotted banners in their mouths, and Jason pulled her forward, screaming  _ "Repent!" _ until the force of it swept through her and burst out her own lips, too.

 

 

**[ Playback ███ ]**

When the reset started, Jason could tell there was something  _ off  _ about the light before he opened his eyes. It washed red over his eyelids, and when he slowly cracked his eyes to glance around him, the arena was swathed in shadow. Half the crowd was starting to flick on their phone's flashlights, and even those shone red. He felt distant from himself. When he flexed his fingers his skin was stiff but neither cold nor hot.

He turned to the person next to him, a man who, fifteen times in a row, had refused to move from his seat. The man had already slid low in his chair and braced his feet on the chair in front of him, making it impossible to exit their row.

"I am unbelievably tired of this," Jason said. "Please, have some consideration. I don't care if you stay here for the rest of your life. Just let me by."

The man crossed his arms over his chest.

Jason sighed. These kinds of people were everywhere. He ran into at least one a day on the train, and he saw an endless stream of them at the store where he worked. Generally people frowned upon you doing anything about it, no matter how inconsiderate and unnecessary the person's actions were. "Okay," he said.

It only took two punches to disorient the man enough for Jason to straddle his legs. The man stirred, but slowly, and could only mouth soundlessly as Jason cupped his jaw in his hand. His sunken eyes seemed huge and pink in the low red light. A considerably greater amount of force was necessary to hold him still for the next couple of minutes. Jason shoved one knee against the man's chest, pinning him in place. He was taller and heavier than the stranger. He dug his fingers into the man's face until his nails cut skin.

With his free hand, he ██████ ██████ ███ █████ ████ ███ █████ █████ ███ .

A minute later the rest of the devout were already beginning to convene on the arena floor without him. Jason left his neighbor slumped in his chair and climbed toward the section exit, wiping his hand on his jeans. A self-indulgent use of time, to be sure. But he did feel much better now. Was that the key? Did he need to rid himself of all frustration, for the doors to open for him?

The hallways were nearly unnavigable in the dim. He stood still, letting his eyes adjust. There was no sound of other footsteps. No other silhouettes in the dark when he could finally see the outlines of things. It was almost silent, like the arena was miles away rather than just a few feet. He was the only one out here.

The world outside the windows was gone. A sheet of pitch black wrapped around the edge of the hall.

Jason took a moment to stop next to a window, though he really should have been on the stairs by now. He pressed his bloodied hand to the glass. It was freezing: His skin actually stuck and stung when he yanked his hand back. "Well," he said, wincing. "I deserved that."

The stairwell door opened into more blackness. But the steps were there, under his feet. Jason moved forward and let the door swing shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> _Due to the distress visited upon inhabitants of SCP-1733, testing has been suspended indefinitely. All attempts at recording previous playbacks were unsuccessful. Please see notes. Requests for further research will be automatically declined, and automatically noted in your file. Stop asking. - Dr. Geller_


End file.
